Flat Earth Society Meeting (Free Box Lunch!)

Has there ever been such a gathering of global warming denying astroturf groups in one place? Friday's meeting of the Flat Earth Society on Capitol Hill may be breaking a dubious record.

It's titled, "President Obama to be challenged on dire climate warning!" but of course even the title is misleading — it's not President Obama warning us about climate change, it's thousands of the best scientists in the world.

Fred Singer, affiliated with no less than 11 think tanks and associations that have received funding from ExxonMobil. Singer is also known as "The Missing Link Between Big Tobacco & Big Oil," having worked to deny both the link between pollution and global warming and the link between cigarettes and cancer.

Roy Spencer, who works with both the Heartland Institute and the George C. Marshall Institute, each of which has received well over half a million dollars from Big Oil to fight science. His satellite research was also prominently refuted in the New York Times.

Marc Morano, former communications director for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who famously called global warming a "hoax." You might remember Morano from when I attended a presentation of his last year. It was called "Climate Change Politics," but instead Morano spent the whole time cracking jokes about Ann Curry and others.

Finally, the news release hypes, in big, red letters:

FREE BOX LUNCH FOR MEDIA!

It goes without saying that real journalists don't eat polluter-funded boxed lunches. Maybe I'll head over there and hang out at the lunch table just to see who does …